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The Snow Job
The Leverage team helps beleaguered Mississippi National Guardsman Wayne Scott find justice against the unscrupulous construction firm that foreclosed on his home. Knowing all too well what it feels like to fail as a father, Nathan Ford seeks solace in the bottle, thus putting the team - and the job - in serious jeopardy. The Client * Wayne Scott The Marks * Henry Retzig and his sons Dennis and Randy. The Con Sophie poses as a winter sports athlete, Leena Christinger, a luge bronze medalist, to interest Randy Retzig. Randy has an idea for a winter sports-music style festival. Sophie pretends to have recently bought the resort and that she is interested in his idea. Sophie asks him to buy into the resort so her partners can use his idea for the relaunch. After convincing Randy that they do own the resort, he reveals that he needs his father to write the $500,000 check that he offered. The team heads to Miami expecting to have to convince Henry that the idea is solid, but he is all for it and only Dennis is against the idea. When they experience static in their earbuds, the team has to plant a booster for the earbud's signal. Hardison discovers later that standard law enforcement equipment had been installed in the Retzing's house. As Dennis writes out the check, he tells Sophie he has turned disaster relief into a gold mine of approximately 400 homes. Horrified at the idea of so many families losing their homes, Nate tells Sophie to tear up the check. She does, and the team decide to go with a new con, but with Dennis as the focus. Nate acts as himself, posing as an insurance investigator, and introduces Dennis to the Glengarry Glen Death scheme, where people invest in dying people to get their insurance policies by using a list of names compiled by Nate. At first, Dennis is resistant and wants confirmation of the terminal cases. On the way back to the hotel, Nate is pulled over by Lieutenant Stone of the state police, who is trying to get the Retzings on racketeering charges. Parker has to pose as Lisa Valdez, a terminally ill brain cancer patient, an actual "patient" chosen by Dennis from the list. The team rigs the MRI by hooking up the monitors to a chamber in another room. Hardison and Eliot rig up a cadaver to appear to have a brain tumor by injecting the head cavity with liquid wax. When Dennis's doctor views the MRI scans, she is surprised that Parker is still alive with the size of the tumor she has. Dennis still doesn't want to go into the scheme, but Nate convinces him of its validity by pretending that another patient on the list has died. Dennis says he'll buy in, but he has to move some funds around. Nate pretends to be discouraged and says that it's for "serious investors." Dennis then offers $5 million to buy in. The reveal The team tricked Henry and Randy into thinking Dennis was about to take all the money in the company's account so Henry would give co-signing control to Randy. Randy then signed paperwork without reading it, which gave the Leverage team the controlling interest in the company, thinking it was for his Winter X Games idea. Henry Retzing is arrested after transferring the company's money to an overseas account to get it away from Dennis, which triggered an investigation. Nate tells Lieutenant Stone to wait two days and he would get them to cross the line. Moments after Henry's arrest, Dennis gets a call from Nate, who revealed that the patient list he showed him earlier were actually the names of the families whose homes they've stolen. Nate then declares that those families's homes will be returned back to their rightful owners, then points out that since he and his group now control Retzing Company, they are repossessing their house, which was declared company property. Ironically, as the remaining Retzings are evicted from their home, it is now taken by the Scotts. Aliases * Vince Fetkey, Hans von Schwesterkrank﻿﻿ (Eliot) * Leena Christinger (Sophie) * Lisa Valdez (Parker) Episode Notes *The Retzings are based upon real construction companies that were stealing homes from Hurricane Katrina victims in and around New Orleans. *This was the first episode to have the earbuds experience interference. When Parker plants a booster, Hardison soon discovers local law enforcement was also listening in. Trivia *Jonathan Frakes makes an uncredited cameo appearance in this episode. He is the patient sitting next to Nate when he is communicating with the rest of the team with the earbuds in the hospital. Frakes is one of the directors of the series. * The "let's go steal a mountain" line is repeated in Season 4's The Long Way Down Job, with the implication that Nate doesn't remember using it before because he was "super drunk." * This is the first time that Hardison's tell in rock, paper, scissors is mentioned. It is still there in "The Gone Fishin' Job." * Parker obviously has no love for her biological father as shown when Sohpie instructs her to think of a sad moment in her life in order to grift as a terminal patient. When Sophie suggests thinking about the time her father died, Parker struggled not to laugh. * The list of names of the terminally ill patients was actually a list of Dennis' victims and he didn't recognize any of them. Production Video Category:Episodes Category:Season 1